Fun and amazing facts about the 1500's!!! I love it!
By April
@cloud_kicker_32 (4635)
United States
August 18, 2007 12:45am CST
Hello everyone..So i get this today and i wanted to share my new things I learned today about the 1500's..I laughed at some and EWWWIWed at others lol..So tell me,what shocked you the most? Which was your favorite? here it is..
The next time you are washing your hands and
complain because the water
temperature isn't just how you like it, think about
how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took
their yearly bath in
May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However,
they were starting to
smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to
hide the body odor. Hence
the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot
water. The man of the
house had the privilege of the nice clean water,
then all the other sons and
men, then the women and finally the children. Last
of all the babies. By
then the water was so dirty you could actually lose
someone in it. Hence the
saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath
water..
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled
high, with no wood
underneath. It was the only place for animals to get
warm, so all the cats
and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the
roof. When it rained it
became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip
and fall off the roof.
Hence the saying .. It's raining cats and dogs.
There was nothing to stop things from falling
into the house.. This
posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and
other droppings could
mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big
posts and a sheet hung
over the top afforded some protection. That's how
canopy beds came into
existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had
something other than dirt.
Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had
slate floors that would
get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread
thresh (straw) on floor
to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on,
they added more thresh
until, when you opened the door, it would all start
slipping outside. A
piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence
the saying a thresh hold.
(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen
with a big kettle that
always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the
fire and added things to
the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get
much meat. They would
eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the
pot to get cold overnight
and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had
food in it that had
been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme,
Peas porridge hot, peas
porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine
days old..
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made
them feel quite special.
When visitors came over, they would hang up their
bacon to show off. It was
a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the
bacon. They would cut off
a little to share with guests and would all sit
around and chew the fat..
Those with money had plates made of pewter.
Food with high acid content
caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,
causing lead poisoning
death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so
for the next 400 years or
so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers
got the burnt bottom of
the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got
the top, or the upper
crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The
combination would
sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of
days. Someone walking along
the road would take them for dead and prepare them
for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days
and the family would
gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if
they would wake up.
Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks
started running out of
places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins
and would take the bones
to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening
these coffins, 1 out of
25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the
inside and they realized
they had been burying people alive. So they would
tie a string on the wrist
of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie
it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the
graveyard all night (the
graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus,
someone could be, saved by
the bell or was considered a ...dead ringer.
And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring,,,lol
3 responses
@pyewacket (43903)
• United States
21 Aug 07
I can add to this a bit...LOL
I studied costume design while in college and I learned another tidbit--Now when we see period style movies, say from the Medieval or Renaissance period we tend to think, wow, how beautiful the women's gowns were...we're thinking in terms though of how things are today with our deodorants and perfumes...but in those days there was none...so part of a woman's dress was to have a long chain like gizmo that came from her waistline area, and at the bottom of it was a filagree ball filled with potpourri--the idea being that if someone came along that was odiferous..which was everyone, the woman took the ball up to her nose to sniff it rather than the smelly person..gee, I did learn something in college...LOL
1 person likes this
@tanjam420 (228)
• United States
21 Aug 07
thank you cloud for the education on the 1500's.. this is pretty interesting and funny well some of them are. the others are kind of gross. although the only one i have ever heard of would be the bathing...lol i am soo thankfull things dont happen like that now, we all would be in trouble...lol..




